Pepper shaker
Tribute to jazz legend Jim Pepper adds spice to Siletz Bay Music Festival
By Eliot Sekuler
For the TODAY
Festival photos by Bob Gibson, Blue Water Photography
A ground-breaking master of musical fusion, Jim Pepper drew upon his Indigenous Kaw and Creek ancestry and his love of jazz to create an exhilarating body of work that has slowly begun to be fully appreciated.
His music will be celebrated at the “Welcome to the Club” jazz night concert of this year’s Siletz Bay Music Festival, where his former bandmate, pianist, composer and arranger Gordon Lee will lead an ensemble performing highlights from Pepper’s unique musical legacy.
The concert will take place at 7:30 pm on Thursday, Aug. 21, at Chinook Winds Casino Resort.
Born and raised in Oregon, Pepper died in 1992 at the age of 50. During his relatively brief career, he wrote and recorded an adaptation of a Comanche chant he had learned from his grandfather, “Witchi Tai To” which still stands as the only song in a Native American-language to hit Billboard’s Hot 100 charts and has since been covered by more than 70 other artists.
He played with such jazz luminaries as Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry and Chick Corea and performed constantly, with performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, at some of New York’s most prestigious jazz clubs, at dives like Juneau, Alaska’s Red Dog Café; in West Africa with a US State Department-sponsored tour; and in the jazz clubs of Germany, Austria, France and his hometown of Portland, where he spent a good part of his professional life.
It was in Portland that he met Lee. The two began playing together in 1978 and became frequent collaborators, performing and recording together in groups led sometimes by Pepper, sometimes by Lee. Their travels took them from across the United States and Europe. Lee recalled the excitement of being drawn into Pepper’s orbit, still marveling at the mixture of personal chaos and artistry that came together in Pepper’s world.
“He was an outrageous character,” said Lee, who was immediately impressed by Pepper’s virtuosity and original approach to the tenor saxophone. “He’d be playing really sweetly one second and then just like a screaming banshee. Jim Pepper was the first human being to put traditional Indian chants and melodies together with gospel style harmony with jazz musicians playing. It was a very complex stew and it worked against all preconceptions from the music industry.”
In addition to bringing Indigenous music to a wider audience with his recording of “Witchi Tai To,” Pepper helped broaden the scope of modern music by experimenting with a new and enduring style of jazz. He pioneered the jazz-rock fusion genre with his band Free Spirit, incorporating electric instruments and rock rhythms into a blend of funk, rock, free jazz and R&B.
“Not enough has been written about Free Spirit,” Lee said. “It was a truly innovative band.”
Lee, whose own work is also noted for its versatility, has composed chamber music for members of the Oregon Symphony, has taught improvisation, theory and jazz history at Western Oregon University, conducted the jazz ensembles at Reed College and performs regularly with his own ensemble in Portland and other Northwest cities. At the Siletz Bay Music Festival concert, he will be showcasing a piece he wrote for Pepper, “Land Whales” and will be leading his six-piece ensemble in performing pieces composed by Pepper and in jazz standards that Pepper frequently performed.
At the festival performance, Lee will be joined by a group of musicians who are fixtures on the Portland jazz scene, including John “JB” Butler, who also performed with Pepper. Renato Caranto will perform Pepper’s saxophone parts, with Dennis Caiazza on bass, Edwin Coleman III on drums and Michelle Alany on violin and vocals.
Also joining Lee and his ensemble will be vocalist and Wasco and Eastern Cherokee fancy dancer Bear Florendo, who, in full regalia, will add a musical and visual accompaniment to the Native American-based compositions in Lee’s set, including the Pepper song “Custer Gets It,” which Pepper based on a war-dance chant.
“The chanting stops and then there’s a free jazz blow out before the chanting comes back in. It’s pretty powerful,” Lee said. “And that was the thing about Jim. He could play these simple harmonies and then, when he wanted to, he could just tap into an animal rage and blow it all out.”
For a schedule of festival performances and complete program information, go to SiletzBayMusic.org.
A packed festival returns
Some 58 musicians, arriving from London, New York, Montreal and throughout the Pacific Northwest, have assembled on the Central Oregon Coast for the 13th season of the Siletz Bay Music Festival, opening on Thursday, Aug. 14, and featuring 11 concerts in 10 days.
The festival’s chamber, jazz and orchestral music performances will be held at the Lincoln City Cultural Center, the Congregational Church of Lincoln City, Newport’s Pacific Maritime Heritage Center, Lincoln City’s Regatta Park Bandshell and Chinook Winds Casino Resort.
Under the leadership of artistic director Mei-Ting Sun, the festival has engaged the internationally acclaimed conductor Johann Stuckenbruck to lead the orchestra.
Festival highlights will include new work by Portland-based composer and cellist Nancy Ives, a musical tribute to Native American jazz legend Jim Pepper and performances of three all-time favorites from the repertoire of the 20th Century – Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring,” George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” and Joaquin Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez” featuring the festival debut of Bulgarian-born guitar virtuoso Georgi ‘Jojo’ Dimitrov.
The chamber music series will include several nods to the 150th anniversary of the birth of French composer Maurice Ravel, and in addition to familiar pieces from the classical canon, will include compositions by Hungary’s Ernest Von Dohnanyi, Italy’s Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Austria’s Alban Berg and American composer William Kroll, pieces seldom heard in a festival setting.
Two free concerts will include the “family concert,” a performance of Prokofiev’s iconic “Peter and the Wolf.”
A fund-raising benefit concert on Thursday, Aug. 21, at Chinook Winds Casino Resort will feature jazz by Portland’s popular Randy Porter Trio with Kenny Washington adding vocals. Appetizers and desserts will be catered by the Chinook Winds team and the festival’s annual “Dick Hyman Award” will be presented to Lincoln City Cultural Center executive director Niki Price.
For a schedule of performances and complete program information, go to SiletzBayMusic.org.